Free Republic

One image sticks with me from Marine Week, the military celebration in Cleveland that wraps up tomorrow. It's not one of Marines in uniforms mingling in our bars and on our streets, or of their tanks and helicopters parked around downtown, or even of the somber evening taps ceremonies at Voinovich Park honoring the fallen. I keep coming back to the image of two girls, both 8, playing with shoulder-fired rocket launchers on Public Square. In this image, one girl's tiny hands are wrapped around the handle and trigger, her mouth propped wide open with laughter, her eyes closed. A...

When did "liberal guilt" get such a bad reputation? You hear it all the time now from people who sneeringly dismiss whites who support Obama's candidacy as "guilty liberals." There are, of course, many reasons why whites might support Obama that have nothing to do with race. But what if redeeming our shameful racial past is one factor for some? Why delegitimize sincere excitement that his nomination and potential election would represent a historic civil rights landmark: making an abstract right a reality at last. Instead, their feeling must be disparaged as merely the result of a somehow shameful "liberal...

No one would argue that earthworms are cute. But to most people, they are benign and helpful creatures — fertilizers of the garden, aerators of the soil, indispensable fishing companions. "Earthworms are truly nature's little farmers," goes one common view, this one on the Web site of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, "plowing the soil and fertilizing at the same time!" But for a growing body of researchers, the traditional view of earthworms is giving way to a much more ominous one. Most earthworms common in the United States are exotic intruders from Europe, Asia or South America, these scientists point...